"I'm sorry, but he's just not attractive," pips Flea.
"It's okay, you don't have to apologise for it. You're entitled to your opinion!" I deftly replied.
"When did I apologise for it?"
"Dude, you just said 'I'm sorry'!"
"Nah, it's just one of those things that people say but don't mean, you know?"
... English is really amusing sometimes, with those sets of phrases that become routinised, those things that "people say, but don't really mean". I understand why it's confusing to second language learners.
I am suddenly reminded of what Huang Hoon told us during one English as a World Language lesson. While attending an overseas Linguistics conference, someone had complimented Huang Hoon on the excellent proficiency of her spoken English; that person was surprised at the level of proficiency she was displaying because she/he did not consider Singaporeans 'native speakers' (I use quotation marks to problematise said notion) of the English language. I had received similar comments during my exchange semester in Denmark, and it was always a struggle to explain to some people that most Singaporeans learn English from a very young age; additionally, English is our national lingua franca. From those conversations arose many indignant feelings on my part, because it felt like I was trying to qualify my abilities to speak English and my ownership of English, which is definitely unnecessary.
I needn't have bothered. Huang Hoon's reponse was/is Brilliant - "Thanks, your English is good too!" It very eloquently and appropriately expresses the level of incredulity I feel whenever people comment on my English proficiency.
Currently, I am dazed and muddled because of one single pink pill. The Fedac. Somehow, the medicine is hitting me hard today; there have been a few moments when my mind wanders off, my vision glazes over and I stare into space. It's no wonder some people get addicted to medicine, drugs and pills. Such numbness and floating into a really astonishingly unique head space can be so attractive to the point of enslavement.
I am listening to Joseph Capriati's set at Time Warp 2014 in Mannheim, Germany. Turns out, techno, when one is disoriented, is exceptionally good. ;_;
A conversation with the younger brother during a shopping trip in Orchard yesterday made me realise that we're all adrift in this terrifying, huge and uncertain world, and this fear extends to even the greatest of us. My younger brother and I are definitely not the greatest of us, but we do possess our insecurities and fears. My younger brother in particular remarked "Fuck. I need to get my life together." !!!! As his elder sister, even though I feel exactly the same way, I felt obliged to let him know that it's a only a matter of time till you vaguely discover what you're passionate about. Besides, who's to say there's only a singular sole purpose in life? We can be preoccupied with small things. Just write and create even just the smallest of things. Leave them incomplete - you can have ongoing projects that may never be finished. But that's how life is; it is a series of projects and undertakings that you may or may not finish. Sometimes even unfinished projects can serve their purpose. Like how Ryan Hemsworth edited Broken Social Scene's Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl in high school; it was never released but the dude used it for his Fader mix many years after high school - it's magical, by the way, that edit.
I have heroes in filmmakers, actors and musicians. I watch interviews of established actors (I'm not excluding women here, but somehow female actresses prefer to be referred to as actors to be taken seriously at their craft. This boggles my mind, but it's back to the female and male equivalents for names - mistress vs. master, witch vs. wizard, man of the house vs. lady of the house) and musicians because it's really inspirational to know that they took a long time to get to where they are, and their paths were fraught with ups and downs as well.
#1 case in point:
Brad Pitt's interview with Lynn Hirschberg for W Magazine
Brad: "But then I called up after and said 'So, you know, how did I do? How did it go, how did I do?' And uh, there was three seconds of silence and she goes, 'Have you ever thought about acting classes?' ... By the way, I was in acting classes."
#2 case in point:
Richie Hawtin's shortest ever set time is 5 min. 5 min. Pete Tong once got thrown off a set during his early days at Amnesia in Ibiza with Nicky Holloway 15 minutes into the set (he mentioned it during one of his Essential Selection episodes! Ask me for specifics if you want to know where he said it).
As spotted on berlin-artparasites' FB page, this quote has also really hit close to my heart, especially in recent times:
"It's messing people up, this social pressure to 'find your passion' and 'know what it is you want to do'. It's perfectly fine to just live your moments fully, and marvel as many small and large passions, many small and large purposes enter and leave your life. For many people there is no realization, no bliss to follow, no discovery of your life's purpose. This isn't sad, it's just the way things are. Stop trying to find the forest and just enjoy the trees."
Closer to home, the people around me have been very kind and supportive as well. Mommy and I were at a cafe the other day having waffles & ice cream for lunch, and she asked me what was wrong. I couldn't give her an answer but simply muttered "I'm just not okay..." I started tearing up and it was/is really difficult for me to tell anyone what I'm unhappy about, but Mommy just went on to tell me "We are your parents and we have more experience than you when it comes to y'knw, life and growing up. Work difficulties and all. No one thinks you're a failure, you know? We all know you're capable, but we are just worried that with this extended period of unemployment, you will start to lose faith in yourself and you will become lazy. You have to stop thinking that you are lousy and inadequate. [All said in Mandarin, I translated.]"
)': + (':
I also confided in Nicholas about my worries and he was very patient with me (had to deal with my crying again, ha. ha. ha.). Everything will sort itself out with time, he had said. When I was more cheerful, I was gushing to him about music: "I feel like my brain consists of a huge library of music of different genres and style... Whenever I come across new music, I kind of know/make a good guess whether this would be something Yihan will like, or you will like, or Louis will, or Flea will, or Lyana, or Thomas and when you all do actually like the tracks I share with you all, I AM POSITIVELY DELIGHTED! :DDDDDDDDDD"
Dude actually replied "You should be a DJ. I would go for your sets." Made me even happier!
If you follow me on Instagram, you would have probably seen that I had attained my driving licence last month.
This was taken right before the driving test, when I was in the waiting room along with the other nervous participants. There was a palpable tension in the air.
My circuit test was actually uneventful! MY CAR DID NOT ROLL DOWN ON THE SLOPE, HALLELUJAH. Yup, I was learning how to drive a manual car. My reverse and parallel parking went by smoothly as well (I was penalised 2 points for turning the wheel while my car was stationary). There was one point in the crank course when I was almost going to bump into the curb but I decided to be more cautious and reversed just to get a tad more space, thus making it through. While out on the road, I could not make my U-turn because I was unable to switch lanes to the outermost one from the innermost one, but luckily the tester was really kind and asked me to turn left instead. He tested me on the U-turn once more and I nailed it! I got a total of 14 demerit points in the end.
I had such little faith in my abilities that I didn't think I would pass. I also did not know about the passport photo (my instructor didn't tell me about it. I think he thought I was going to fail too hahahahaha) so I had to get the instant print!
Terrible photo, but it will have to do.
Very ironically, the last lesson I had right before my driving lesson was disastrous. I had written an entry about it but never completed/uploaded it:
"Every driving lesson I have I feel like I take a complete blow to my confidence because I have absolutely no skills at all. Today I feel despondent because there were so many instances of "immediate failure". I'm seldom thought of as JC, uni kid but in this scenario my sentiments are exactly as those of a typical JC/uni kid - this is a practical driving test, there are no bloody stacks of practice test papers that I can do to prepare for it. I feel so wretched..."
LOOK AT ME NAO
LOOK AT ME NAO
:D This just means the cosmos works in strange ways hehehehe.
Went to send Boss off that night as well (: Mister's having a flippin' time in Europe now!
It's been about 3 weeks since I've gotten my licence. My first drive in my dad's car made his face turn green. He had even asked, "Do you want to ask your instructor for more lessons, but use our car instead? I think you need them." SUCH A LACK OF FAITH, HAHAHA. I was highly tickled. However, I managed to win back his trust just on the way back home! Adjustment from a manual car to an automatic one, from a small car to a longer and wider family car, just in a span of one drive, check! Recently I was allowed in the car alone to go pick Flea up (thank you Mommy for your trust in me!!), and when she got into my car, she immediately played this:
LOL MY BEST FRIEND, EVERYONE. Hahahahaah. We started bopping up and down to the music.
I feel like the two of us are still such kids sometimes. The other day she came across this playground, and shortly after, I reached; the woman convinced me to play for another 30min or so.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEE
'twas great fun!
Brought her to Pasta J for dinner!
Enamoured with that damn fresh pesto sauce.
She ordered The Bourdain and kindly let me try a bite! I don't usually eat tomato-based pastas hence even though I go to Pasta J so frequently, I've never ordered this. But it's actually really abundantly flavoured with herbs and the tomato taste, while strong, is not overpowering at all! It's not the artificial tomato flavour that I dislike. I'm not sure, but I think there's vinegar added to this to balance the sweetness of the tomatoes! Will definitely have this for my own main course next time.
I got myself the Rustic Pork Chops! John's always so generous with the amount of pork chop.
Flea loved the pan-fried mushrooms and roasted garlic bits!
Here's a selfie with Flea's exuberant basil plant.
The other night, I braved the oil-laden air to run into a pasar malam with Huda. We had glorious putu piring! Oh, I love you so, gula melaka.
Headed over to town to do a bit of writing and I managed to help a friend out with writing copy! That was pretty interesting.
Emphasised the liner loads that day. Also, I am obsessed with this headscarf that had been gifted to me by Alberta! It's so darling! I wear it very often. (:
Today I clicked open my "Writings" folder with a sizable amount of dread because I needed to work on something, and to my surprise, I found a number of half-written pieces about many different people, things and experiences! Reading those texts was very strange for me. I had forgotten that I even wrote some of them. It brought me back to the times of occurrences, and more vitally I kind of re-lived the state of mind I was in when I wrote those certain things.
This has been such a long entry! It is 3.20 am now. I am headed to bed.
I write about my everyday experiences & pen down my thoughts in this lil' space.
I read, listen to music, have a passion in language, love makeup and most of all, I observe. I really like learning.
I love making a difference.
All information and pictures on the blog are property of Pamela unless stated otherwise. Please ask for permission before using any information from this blog, thank you!
